For one or two jobs and an occasional personal instance, I have had to sign documents electronically. There are a few ways to do so online, for little or even no cost at all so I decided to take a look at a couple of them: DigiSigner and SignNow.
This subject has always been an interest for me, as it is a point of change for humans to be able to sign things, legally, from far away. It sounds odd, at first, certainly, but once taken in the context of moving into a technologically driven and supported society, it’s a big deal. I’ve always been a proponent of technology in general and the advancement of it is a measure of society as well.
Looking into the possible or even probably future, where tech is king, software will presumably be far more advanced both in terms of complexity as well as common use, so being able to sign a legal document from the other side of the planet could easily become the standard. In fact, signing documents electronically has been possible for a long time, especially if you count earlier technologies like fax machines or even pneumatic tubes.
All of that is a far flung fancy and may not seem like it has much to do with life today, but signing documents remotely is still a valid and convenient option. There are two sites, specifically, that I looked at for this article. The first is DigiSigner and I attempted to compare it to SignNow and possibly decide between them.
DigiSigner is certainly easy to use, even though I found the splash page to be, somehow, intimidating. Perhaps it was all the text grouped the way it was, I don’t know. What did I expect from a site dealing with legal things? It wasn’t a big deal and didn’t detract from the site’s usefulness, it was just something discordant I felt at the way the page looked. Since I couldn’t put my finger on what it was, however, I moved on into using the site to give it a fair shake. I chose the “DigiSigner Online” option near the bottom of the page and away I went. After verifying that I trusted the page’s own electronic signature, I was taken to a flash page with instructions on signing a PDF format document using the DigiSigner software. It was three steps, simple and easy, but since I didn’t have a legal document to actually sign I can’t testify as to how such a signature would hold up legally, although the site promises it will. in categories of how easy and simple it was, I’d rate it as chimp doable. Not a problem for anyone with the skills of literacy and mouse clicking.
The second site I check out, SignNow, was much nicer, visually speaking, on the splash page. Again, this is an opinion here, but I found it to be much ‘friendlier’ than the somewhat stuffy DigiSigner front page. The aesthetics notwithstanding, I moved into the site to check out how it worked. I immediately noticed that there are mobile apps for Android and iOS available to interact with SignNow on the go. Also of note on the front page was the promise that I could sign a document right now with no registration needed. Comparatively, I don’t recall DigiSigner asking me to register for anything either. Once I pressed the Open Document button, I was taken straight to the Windows Explorer browsing window to find a document to sign. Fast, simple, easy just like DigiSigner. If you do decide to create a free account, you can do things like saving your documents online and let others sign them later.
The Verdict: I’d honestly have to say that while DigiSigner is a decent site, SignNow has a few points up on it. Most notably the mobile apps, and the overall ‘feel’ of the site and how it works. This is based on the idea that all you want to do is sign a PDF document electronically. If you’re looking for more integrated functionality like embedding the option into some kind of applet or other program, DigiSigner is going to be your better option but that kind of thing has a cost attached to it. The balance means that in the end, for my readers, I would recommend SignNow over DigiSigner. Until next time, my friends!
